


Elusive

by RedemptionByFire (steelneena)



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: F/M, Robin Masters is a character from Dale Cooper's officially licensed autobiography.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:02:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4862333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/RedemptionByFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Special Agent Robin Masters, FBI is now teaching at Quantico. When she meets prospective Agent Audrey Horne, Robin is in for more of a blast from the past than she expected. And a more mysterious one than she'd like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elusive

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of a larger work, but I found that it was best as a stand alone piece.  
> Agent Robin Masters is a character from Dale Cooper's Autobiography. She was in his class at Quantico and they were good friends. The book can be read here: http://www.glastonberrygrove.net/texts/coopbio.html
> 
> As always, everything is Dale/Audrey, even if it isn't explicitly stated.

Special Agent Robin Masters hadn't had this much fun since her days at academy. Teaching at Quantico was a different pace than she was used to, but after everything she'd been witness to in San Francisco the opportunity was too good to pass up. And here she was, teaching a psychology class at Quantico, Virginia. The class was full of interesting individuals, each capable and proficient. There were more and more girls every year, she'd noted with relative excitement.

One had particularly caught her eye. The elusive Audrey Horne, twenty four years old. She was fresh off the press, wide eyed, but not quite innocent. There was something more there, something that spoke of darkness in the past. There were always a few recruits who had the look about them, and some were more forthcoming than others. Horne was not one of them. It was apparent that after the first month, Audrey had not made friends with anyone. Bonds at Quantico were generally a common thing. Camaraderie was commonplace, and while she had seemingly achieved the respect of her peers and afforded them her respect in turn, no one particularly liked her and she seemed to like no one in particular. Solitary, indeed, Robin had decided. And elusive.

  
The instructor had spent much of the day involved in paperwork, but as she walked down the hall towards the exit, she noticed Audrey standing in front of the Hall of Honor, stationary, pensive.

"Audrey, hello,"

"Hello Agent Masters," There was a silence. Robin looked to the spot where Audrey had trained her gaze.

"I knew him, you know,"

Audrey's head shot up. "Who?"

"The name you're staring at, Dale Cooper. I knew him,"

"Oh," Audrey didn't say anything else, and Robin was mildly perplexed. This situation had cropped up in the past, and generally, a student would express sympathy. The names on the wall were just names to them. Nothing more and nothing less, until she volunteered her experience to make it real.

"He was-"

"Damn Fine. Agent Cooper was damn fine, Instructor. That's the only way to describe him. Just like his favourite cup of coffee, black as midnight on a moonless night. He was full of bull like that. Saying strange things about Tibet and coffee, and trees,"

Audrey fell silent. Robin only looked at her in shock.

"You knew Dale?"

"He's not dead, you know. Or maybe he is. I don't know what I believe anymore," The young woman had a glazed look in her eyes, and Robin felt a twinge of fear.

"How did you know him?" Her question was but a breath.

"There was never a better man, Agent Masters. He was good and he was honest. He was better than Twin Peaks deserved. And we ruined him. We drew him in, and destroyed everything he ever was,"

The two stayed in silence for a moment more, and as Robin opened her mouth to speak, Audrey had already turned and walked away.

That night, Robin pulled Audrey's file.  
  
Horne, Audrey  
8/15/72  
Twin Peaks, WA

  
She didn't read much father. There was no mention of any prior engagement with the Bureau, nor any involvement in anything remotely Bureau related. But everyone knew that Dale Cooper had been in Twin Peaks. No one was quite sure what happened to him, how he died, or what was going on there. He'd solved the murder of the teenaged girl, been exonerated from drug trafficking, and then, he'd taken his vacation days and ended up...

They'd held a ceremony in his honor. His father and step-mother had attended. Gordon Cole had attended. Everyone else who knew him even remotely was there.  
Robin was resolved. The next day, she would confront Audrey Horne.

The class was letting out. Throughout the hour, she'd kept her gaze on Audrey, studiously note taking, asking pertinent questions, and generally being as intelligent as she was reputed.

"Audrey, please I'd like to talk with you," She flagged her down as the students made their way to the door.

"Of course," They waited in strained silence as the rest of the class filed through the door. When at last it swung shut, and they were alone, Robin turned to Audrey.

"Please. You have to tell me how you knew Dale,"

"He stayed at the Great Northern while he was in Twin Peaks. It's my father's hotel. He was our guest," It was the barest bones which Audrey gave to Robin. So Robin pressed harder.

"But the way you talked about him...you knew him. Do you...what happened?"

Audrey looked up at her, suddenly locking eyes.

"I was in the hospital, recovering from the bank explosion when I found out that he'd been admitted. They'd found him the night before, unconscious. Sheriff Truman had taken him back to his room at the Great Northern, and called Doctor Hayward. When he woke up, they said that he seemed disoriented...off... He kept saying that he needed to brush his teeth. They heard a crash from the bathroom, and when they busted down the door, they found him, leaning up against the sink. The mirror was shattered, and he was bleeding from a gash in his forehead. He was..." Audrey's voice hitched. "He was giggling, they said. Manically. Repeating over and over, How's Annie? How's Annie? The Sheriff told me that Deputy Hawk knocked him unconscious, and Doctor Hayward suggested he be admitted.  
When I woke up, I heard the nurses saying that he'd just come to himself, so I snuck out of my room to see him. Sheriff Truman was there, and they were talking. He seemed...okay but...  
When I walked in, he smiled at me and it was wrong. It was just wrong," Audrey paused her emotional tirade. In a soft voice, she added, Robin was sure, to herself. "He wasn't My Special Agent,"

"Audrey?" She looked sharply up at Robin, when the older woman uttered the word.

"Anyways, he was violent after that. They tried putting him a medically induced coma. They wouldn't let me in to see him. Then, one day, he was gone and no one knew where," It was an abrupt end to the story, but it was obvious that Audrey would say no more.

"Thank you Audrey. I...he was my friend," Robin finished lamely.

"He's the reason I joined up," The young woman looked up at her suddenly, her gaze so earnest, and bright with unshed tears that Robin felt moved. "I'm going to find him. I'm going to go back there, to that awful place and I'm going to bring him back. He made a deal with me, and he isn't getting out of it by dying,"

Robin smiled sadly. "A deal?"

"He'd better watch out. That's what I told him. I'd be grown up and on my own, and then he'd better watch out," She looked down at her shoes. Saddle shoes, Robin noted. Girlish and at once so unsurprising. "Agent Cooper said a lot of remarkable things, Agent Masters, and two of them really stuck with me. Friendship is the foundation of any lasting relationship. I quoted him on that once. I don't think he said it with any great thought the first time, but he was pleased all the same. The second thing I'll abridge. What we need and what we want are two different things. I think those two thoughts everyday, Agent Masters, like one of his inane Tibetan mantras. I try to live my life by them," She looked back up at Robin, a fierce and surprising determination in her eyes. "I'm going to make him proud of me. I'm going to make him proud, and he'll uphold his end of the deal,"

Robin didn't ask what his end of their deal had been. In fact, she said nothing, and Audrey said nothing. The silence continued until Audrey looked up at the clock.

"Excuse me, Agent Masters, I've got a class to get to,"


End file.
